Might be decertifying, but sounds like Free Agency could start at midnight. Talk about a clusterfuck. I would like to assume that our FO is plenty ready for this and have their targets locked and loaded.

Shit, I haven't even paid attention enough to know who the FA studs are. Asomugha is about all I know

I believe the way the players would like to see it go is they file a class action anti-trust suit claiming a lockout by all teams simultaneously runs afoul of the anti-trust laws (this has been done now). At the same time, they file a motion for a temporary restraining order preventing the teams from locking out the players. If the TRO is granted (and most I've seen assume it will be), the court would have to decide under what rules the league would move on "temporarily" while the preliminary injunction stage takes place. That would involve heavy briefing and most likely at least a short evidenciary hearing. The judge would then have to write a PI opinion and the parties would be off to the appellate court.

The players are making a (in my view) reasonable judgment that the court is not likely to allow the league to institute the lockout after the union is out of the picture. They also reasonably expect the judge to require the parties to continue working under the old rules (which worked well enough for everyone for a long time) until the litigation can be resolved. If he doesn't do that, he's essentially given the league a victory and all they have to do is stall in court as long as possible. That's a worst case scenario for the players, but IMhO, not a likely outcome, especially with this judge.

It's unlikely free agency could ever start "by midnight tonight," but it could be back to "business as usual" within a week or so. At least, that's what the players are counting on.

If you're gonna give up a billion, it's reasonable that you wanna see some books.

That being said, there's the same amount of chance the general public sees Major League Baseball's REAL books.

Anyways, the players checks will stop at a far faster rate than the legal process takes, and while the players in this day and age should be closer to Carson Palmer in being able to say, FU, I got money in the bank, there are far too many Antonio Cromarties, with not a dime to their name. Face it, if you're taking down several hundred G's in a paycheck, and the players association has to practically plead with you to save some from your last couple checks....these aren't cats that are gonna dig themselves into the foxhole.

mistero wrote:I with the owners, Do not come back until the union is a bad memory. Take 3 years..4..whatever. Come back when players salaries make sense. Cut them all.

Sure, a lot of the salaries don't make sense, and rookies make too much, but is the league non-competitive because of it? The NFL is the one league where it seems that market doesn't matter. You are as good as your player, coaches, and front office.

I tend to side with the owners, but I think that might have more to do with my feelings about the NBA and MLB.

Someone explain to me we should give a shit how things are run as long as the league has parity and the Browns have a chance on merit. Why should we be calling for players to be cut so that we could watch scrubs in the only league that's working?

If they shut down for any length of time does that mean that the "student-athletes" actually become students? Will they have to actually obtain a meaningfull degree or can we use them to fill in the draft requirements of fielding 2-3 open wars? Since I have not seen professional football since 1996 I am kind of enjoying this. Oh yeah, a friend (in a professional position)got a raise after 5 years due to the economy.........2%. So my heart is really not bleeding over their billions.

motherscratcher wrote:Someone explain to me we should give a shit how things are run as long as the league has parity and the Browns have a chance on merit. Why should we be calling for players to be cut so that we could watch scrubs in the only league that's working?

I'd rather watch scrubs than lose Restricted Free Agency and the Franchise Tag.

(Not that we'll see scrubs - this is a lockout, not a strike)

Per PD:

By dissolving and announcing it no longer represents the players in collective bargaining, the union cleared the way for class-action lawsuits against the NFL, which opted out of the CBA in 2008. The antitrust suit -- forever to be known as Brady et al vs. National Football League et al -- attacked the league's policies on the draft, salary cap and free-agent restrictions such as franchise-player tags.

Basically, if the players had their way, they'd get the kind of freedom and power that the players in the NBA enjoy... to the detriment of the sport as a whole. You can't really blame the players for doing that - I'm sure they've convinced themselves that they are oppressed. But in all reality what's best for the league and the sport and most especially the fans is for player power to be curtailed.

As Yogi said, it's crazy to take sides, and I dislike both the owners and the players and identify with neither and could care less about their "problems". But the NFL that I want to see - hard salary cap, rookie wage scale, franchise tags, restricted free agency (basically everything that keeps the NFL from being the NBA) - would be best served by the owners breaking the players.

I love football, and if college football could just figure out a way to have a playoff system, it would probably be the #1 sport in the land and I would more easily live without the NFL. But until that happens, the NFL is the King, and I want it back.

PS - Love how the 2 biggest prima donnas in the biz are paving the way to player "freedom".

Dunno how we went from where we were last week to this. I'm not entirely sure if the players are looking for more freedom, or if they just went nuclear option on the owners to squeeze 'em into opening the books.

"The fucking Who...... If I want to watch old people run around ill go set fire to a nursing home." - CDT

Madre Hill, Superstar wrote:Dunno how we went from where we were last week to this. I'm not entirely sure if the players are looking for more freedom, or if they just went nuclear option on the owners to squeeze 'em into opening the books.

The problem for the players is that Article LVII, Section 3(a) of the CBA required them to wait six months before filing an antitrust lawsuit if they failed to file it before the expiration of the labor deal. So they’ve opted, apparently, to file the lawsuit in accordance with the terms of the CBA and hope that they can cobble together an argument that will allow the waiver of the “sham” defense to still apply. The league’s position is pretty simple. By failing to wait until the CBA expired to decertify, the plain terms of the agreement preserves the league’s ability to argue that the process of shutting down the union is a sham. And it is a sham. Everyone knows it’s a sham. But if the league can’t argue in court that it’s a sham, it doesn’t matter. If the league can argue that it’s a sham, then the league will be in good position to avoid an injunction and maintain a lockout.

We've had a hiring freeze and no raises for two years. Do you think anyone went to the administration and demanded to see the books? Nope, mopst people are just happy to still have a job. We might grumble but we have to take it on faith the company is losing money or treading water. No employee has a right to see the books.

Another thing, I would love to see free agency die. There must be some way to keep players from switching teams every two years. If not eliminated altogether, more restricted would be nice.

mistero wrote:We've had a hiring freeze and no raises for two years. Do you think anyone went to the administration and demanded to see the books? Nope, mopst people are just happy to still have a job. We might grumble but we have to take it on faith the company is losing money or treading water. No employee has a right to see the books.

I was going to leave your first quote alone as your 'get off my lawn' moment. Right now, though, I'm having visions of George III gut laughing at your attitude. I think I'll just leave it at that, and go back to shaking my heads at both sides of this dispute.

"The fucking Who...... If I want to watch old people run around ill go set fire to a nursing home." - CDT

motherscratcher wrote:Someone explain to me we should give a shit how things are run as long as the league has parity and the Browns have a chance on merit. Why should we be calling for players to be cut so that we could watch scrubs in the only league that's working?

I'd rather watch scrubs than lose Restricted Free Agency and the Franchise Tag.

(Not that we'll see scrubs - this is a lockout, not a strike)

Per PD:

By dissolving and announcing it no longer represents the players in collective bargaining, the union cleared the way for class-action lawsuits against the NFL, which opted out of the CBA in 2008. The antitrust suit -- forever to be known as Brady et al vs. National Football League et al -- attacked the league's policies on the draft, salary cap and free-agent restrictions such as franchise-player tags.

Basically, if the players had their way, they'd get the kind of freedom and power that the players in the NBA enjoy... to the detriment of the sport as a whole. You can't really blame the players for doing that - I'm sure they've convinced themselves that they are oppressed. But in all reality what's best for the league and the sport and most especially the fans is for player power to be curtailed.

As Yogi said, it's crazy to take sides, and I dislike both the owners and the players and identify with neither and could care less about their "problems". But the NFL that I want to see - hard salary cap, rookie wage scale, franchise tags, restricted free agency (basically everything that keeps the NFL from being the NBA) - would be best served by the owners breaking the players.

I love football, and if college football could just figure out a way to have a playoff system, it would probably be the #1 sport in the land and I would more easily live without the NFL. But until that happens, the NFL is the King, and I want it back.

PS - Love how the 2 biggest prima donnas in the biz are paving the way to player "freedom".

SD:

The first strike got broken when the biggest names in the league crossed the picket line , thats why I said the owners seriously miscalculated this time when the leagues biggest margues were standing on the front line .

Ignorant Hawkes like that idiot Richardson fanned the flames instead of alleviating a volatile situation , by publically bracing for war he allowed the union to bolster their defense .

Madre Hill, Superstar wrote:Dunno how we went from where we were last week to this.

Mediation 101. Start with the small and inconsequential things. Color of the carpet in the locker room, size of numbers on the jersey, shit like that. Make progress and give the media and fans false hope. Save the tough discussions for later -

"Give us our $1,000,000,000,000."

"Fuck you"

Decertify

Lock out

Litigate

I don't need to be patient, they're going to be shit forever. - CDT, discussing my favorite NFL team

Madre Hill, Superstar wrote:Dunno how we went from where we were last week to this.

Mediation 101. Start with the small and inconsequential things. Color of the carpet in the locker room, size of numbers on the jersey, shit like that. Make progress and give the media and fans false hope. Save the tough discussions for later -

"Give us our $1,000,000,000,000."

"Fuck you"

Decertify

Lock out

Litigate

Pretty much this.

I think we're forgetting the real victims here. The agents. These people have families to feed, alot of FA need new contrcts and they're getting shut out with no mention of their hardships and struggles.

Cerebral_DownTime wrote:I think we're forgetting the real victims here. The agents. These people have families to feed, alot of FA need new contrcts and they're getting shut out with no mention of their hardships and struggles.

And what about the concession stand owners who can't sell the same amount of beer for $5 or $8 anymore? They have kids to feed too!

"The fucking Who...... If I want to watch old people run around ill go set fire to a nursing home." - CDT

JacksonDysonJackson wrote:IMO, the owners know they have the playas over a barrel (since their paychecks will stop coming) and will ride this out until the players wilt. Time is on the owners side.

Only if that TV $ is available. If the fits court decision holds, I expect the owners to cave first. DeMaurice means business and he seems like he knows his way around the legal system more than Jeff whats his face.

F#$k all these a$#holes. Do what I've done to help the economy and be a REAL fan: Instead of paying riduclous prices for tickets/concessions, get some cash, 10 of your best friends, and give that business to your local watering hole. Anyone who's been to a Brownsbacker bar, or better yet, the R-Bar down in Cbus for Blue Jackets game, knows that's an environment where you can party hard, drink harder, and not get escorted out for making a mess about it. I understand seeing it live is like nothing else, but there is nothing I can do at the Muni or at CBS that I can't do with a ton of my friends in a driveway or at 1899/Chases/Hobnobbers/Any other bar Mentor/Willoughby/D-Town.

"All Beckett needs to do to cap off this mess is order some fried chicken and beer" – 5/10/12 before Beckett got chased in the 3rd at Fenway.

No telling if the quoted text is accurate, but if it is, this wasn't much of a negotiation on the part of the players. Add up the comments from their lead man coming into this, "This is WAR!" and its easy to believe the players union is exactly where they decided they'd be months ago, dissolved and going into litigation.

Fuck em. All of them. The owners for allowing themselves to get suckered into a deal they didn't want years ago, and the union for essentially refusing to negotiate.

I mean, where I work I spend an awful lot of time negotiating contracts and compensation and entitlement, and the quoted text doesn't sound much like a negotiation on the players part IYAM.

The NFL said its offer included splitting the difference in the dispute over how much money owners should be given off the top of the league's revenues. Under the expiring CBA, the owners immediately got about $1 billion before dividing the remainder of revenues with the players; the owners entered negotiations seeking to roughly double that.But the owners eventually reduced that additional upfront demand to about $650 million. Then, on Friday, they offered to drop that to about $325 million. Smith said the union offered during talks to give up $550 million over the first four years of a new agreement -- or an average of $137.5 million.

"We worked hard," said Goodell, who was joined at mediation on Thursday and Friday by nine of the 10 members of the owners' powerful labor committee. "We didn't reach an agreement, obviously. As you know, the union walked away from the mediation process."

Also in the NFL's offer, according to the league:

• Maintaining the 16 regular-season games and four preseason games for at least two years, with any switch to 18 games down the road being negotiable.

• Instituting a rookie wage scale through which money saved would be paid to veterans and retired players.

• Creating new year-round health and safety rules.

• Establishing a fund for retired players, with $82 million contributed by the owners over the next two years.